“Osy,” said Mrs. Osborne, “you mustn’t let cousin Gervase get hold of
you like that again.”
“He’s a dood horse,” said the little boy, “when I sit tight. I have to
sit vewey tight; but next time I’ll get on him’s both shoulders, and
hold him like a real horse. He’s dot a too narrow back, and too far up
from the ground.”
“But listen to me, Osy. It makes me too frightened. You mustn’t ride him
again.”
“I’ll not wide him if I can help it,” said Osy, reddening with mingled
daring and terror, “but he takes me up before I can det far enough off,
and I tan’t run away, mamma.”
“But you must run away, Osy, when I tell you.”
The child looked up at her doubtfully. “It was you that told me
gemplemens don’t run away.”
“Not before an enemy, or that,” said Margaret, taking refuge in the
vague, “but when it’s only for fun, Osy.”
“Fun isn’t never serous, is it, mamma?”
“It would be very serious if you fell from that fo----, from Cousin
Gervase’s shoulder, Osy. Go out for a walk this afternoon, dear, with
nurse.”
“I don’t like nurse. I like Uncle Giles best. And I’m the outwider,
telling all the people he’s toming.”
“You see Uncle Giles has got something else to do.”
Gervase was still in the foreground of the picture, carrying out his
_consigne_. The servant had brought out upon the terrace at the other
side of the house a box containing a game of which, in former days, Sir
Giles had been fond. It was Gervase who had proposed this diversion
to-day. “I’ll play father a game at that spinner thing,” he had said,
after the large heavy luncheon, which was Sir Giles’ dinner. “I’d like
that, lad,” the old man cried with delight. It was a beautiful
afternoon, and nothing could be more charming than the shady terrace on
the east side of the house which in these hot July days was always cool.
The sunshine played on the roof of the tall house, and fell full on the
turf and the shrubs, and the flower garden at the south corner, but on
the terrace all was grateful shade. The game was brought out, and many
experiments were made to see at what angle Sir Giles could best throw
the ball with which it was played--an experiment in which Dunning took
more or less interest, seeing it saved him another weary promenade
through the grounds, pushing his master’s chair. The carriage was
waiting round the corner, and Lady Piercey came sailing downstairs with
Parsons behind her carrying a large cloak. “Meg! do you know I’m ready
to go out?” cried Lady Piercey, in the tone of that king who had once
almost been made to wait. “May I bring Osy, aunt?” cried Margaret. “No,”
was the peremptory answer. “I’ll go without you if you don’t be quick.”
“And I don’t want to go, mover,” said Osy. “I’m doing to play with Uncle
Giles.”
“Come along, little duffer,” cried Gervase; “I’ll give you another ride
when we’ve done playing.”
“Meg, come this moment!” cried Lady Piercey; and Margaret, with agonised
visions, was compelled to go. Bitter is the bread of those who have to
run up and down another man’s stairs, and be as the dogs under his
table. “Oh!” Margaret Osborne said to herself, “if I had but the
smallest cottage of my own! If I could but take in needlework or clear
starching, and work for my boy!” Perhaps the time might come when that
prayer should be fulfilled, and when it would not seem so sweet as she
thought.
Lady Piercey took her usual drive in a long round through the familiar
roads which she had traversed almost every day for the last thirty
years. She knew not only every village, but every cottage in every
village, and every tree, and every clump of wild honeysuckle or clematis
flaunting high upon the tops of the hedges. By dint of long use, she had
come to make that frequent, almost daily, progress without seeing
anything, refreshed, it is to be supposed, by the sweep of the wide
atmosphere and all the little breezes that woke and breathed about her
as she went over long miles and miles of green country, all monotonously
familiar and awakening no sensation in her accustomed breast. She
thought of her own affairs as she made these daily rounds, which many a
poorer woman envied the old lady, thinking how pleasant it would be to
change with her, and see the world from the luxurious point of vantage
of a landau with a pair of good horses, and a fat coachman and agile
footman on the box. But Lady Piercey thought of none of these
advantages, nor of the beautiful country, nor the good air, but only of
her own cares, which filled up all the foreground of her life, as they
do with most of us. After a while, being forced by the concatenation of
circumstances, she began to discuss these cares with Margaret, which was
her custom when Parsons, who knew them all as well as her ladyship, was
out of the way. Mrs. Osborne was made fully aware that it was because
there was no one else near, that she was made the confidant of her
aunt’s troubles; but she listened, nevertheless, very dutifully, though
to-day with a somewhat distracted mind, thinking of her child, and
seeing an awful vision before her of Osy tossed from Gervase’s shoulder
and lying stunned on the ground, with nobody but Dunning and Sir Giles
to look after him. This made her perhaps less attentive than usual to
all Lady Piercey’s theories as to what would be the making of Gervase,
and save him from all difficulties and dangers. The old lady was not
deceived in respect to her son; she was very clear-sighted, although in
a moment of excitement, as on that morning, she might be ready to credit
him with ideal virtues; on ordinary occasions nothing could be more
clear than her estimate, or more gloomy than her forecast, of what his
future might be.
“I am resolved on one thing,” said Lady Piercey, “that we must marry him
by hook or crook. I hate the French: they’re a set of fools, good for
nothing but dancing and singing and making a row in the world; but I
approve their way in marrying. They would just look out a suitable
person, money enough, and all that, and he’d have to marry her whether
he liked it or not. Are you listening, Meg? If your uncle had done that
with you, now, what a much better thing for you than pleasing your fancy
as you did and grieving your heart!”
“I’m not worth discussing, aunt, and all that’s over and gone long ago.”
“That’s true enough; but you’re an example, and if I think proper, I’ll
use it. I dare say Captain Osborne thought you had a nice bit of money
when he first began to think of you, and was a disappointed man when he
knew----”
“Aunt, I cannot have my affairs discussed.”
“You shall have just what I please and nothing else,” said the grim old
lady. “I have had enough of trouble about you to have a right to say
what I please. And so I shall do, whatever you may say. A deal better it
would have been for you if we had just married you, as I always wished,
to a sensible man with a decent income, who never would have left you to
come back upon your family, as you have had to do. That’s a heavy price
to pay, my dear, for the cut of a man’s moustache. And I’d just like to
manage the same for my own boy, who is naturally much more to me than
you. But then there’s the girl to take into account; girls are so much
indulged nowadays, they take all kinds of whimseys into their heads. Now
I should say, from my point of view, that Gervase would make an
excellent husband; if she was sensible, and knew how to manage, she
might turn him round her little finger. What do you say? Oh, I know you
are never likely to think of anything to the advantage of my boy.”
“I think my cousin Gervase has a great many good qualities, aunt;
whether you would be doing right in making him marry, is another
matter.”
“Oh, you think so! it would be better to leave him unmarried, and then
when we die Osy would have the chance? For all so clever as you are,
Meg, I can see through you there. But Osy has no chance, as you ought to
know. There’s the General, and his son, Gerald--a new name in the
family, as if the Gileses and the Gervases were not good enough for a
younger branch! If it was Osy, bless the child, I don’t know that I
should mind so much,” the old lady said in a softened tone, with a tear
suddenly starting in the corner of her eye.
“Thank you for thinking that,” said Margaret, subdued. “I know very well
it could never be Osy.”
“But there might be another Osy,” said Lady Piercey, putting away that
tear with a surreptitious finger. “There never was a brighter man than
your uncle, and I’m no fool; and yet you see Gervase---- What’s to
hinder Gervase from having a boy like his father if the mother of it was
good for anything? A girl, if she had any sense, might see that. What’s
one person in a family? The family goes on and swamps the individual.
You may be surprised at me using such words; but I’ve thought a deal
about it--a great deal about it, Meg. A good girl of a good race, that
is what he wants; and, goodness gracious, if she only knew how to set
about it, what an easy time she might have!”
To this, Margaret, being probably of another opinion, made no reply; and
Lady Piercey, after an expectant and indignant pause, burst forth--“You
don’t think so, I suppose? You think the only thing he’s likely to get,
or that is fit for him, is this minx at the Seven Thorns?”
“I never thought so,” cried Margaret, “nor believed in that at
all--never for a moment.”
“That shows how much you know,” said the old lady, with a snort of
anger. “I believe in it, if you don’t. Who is he staying at home to-day
and trying to please, the booby! that hadn’t sense enough to keep that
quiet? Don’t you see he’s under orders from her? Ah, she knows what’s
what, you may be sure. She sees all the ways of it, and just how to
manage him. The like of you will not take the trouble to find out, but
that sort of minx knows by nature. Oh, she has formed all her plans, you
may be sure! She knows exactly how she is going to do it and baffle all
of us; but I shall put a spoke in my lady’s wheel. My lady!” cried Lady
Piercey, with the irritation of one who feels her own dearest rights
menaced; “she is calculating already how soon she’ll get my name and
make me the dowager! I know it as well as if I saw into her; but she is
going a bit too fast, and you’ll see that I’ll put a spoke in her wheel!
John! you can turn back now, and drive to the place I told you of. I
want to ask about some poultry at that little inn. You know the name of
it.”
“The Seven Thorns, my lady?” said John, turning round on the box, with
his hand at his hat, and his face red with suppressed laughter, made
terrible by fear of his mistress--as if he and the coachman had not been
perfectly well aware, when the order was given, what kind of wildfowl
was that pretended poultry which took Lady Piercey to the Seven Thorns!
“So it is; that was the name,” said the old lady. “You can take the
first turning, and get there as quick as possible. You’ll just see how I
shall settle her,” she added, nodding her head as soon as the man’s back
was turned.
“Do you mean to see the girl, aunt?” cried Margaret, in surprise and
alarm.
“What’s so wonderful in that? Of course I mean to see her. I shall let
her know that I understand all her little plans, and mean to put a stop
to them. She is not to have everything her own way.”
“But, aunt, do you think a girl of that kind will pay any
attention?--don’t you think that perhaps it will do more harm than----”
“I know that you have always a fine opinion of your own people, Meg
Piercey! and of me especially, that am only your aunt by marriage. You
think there’s nothing I can do that isn’t absurd--but I think
differently myself, and you shall just see. Attention? Of course she
will pay attention. I know these sort of people; they believe what you
tell them in a way you wouldn’t do: they know no better. They’re far
cleverer than you in some things, but in others they’ll believe just
what you please to tell them,” said Lady Piercey, with a fierce toss of
her head, “if you speak strong enough; and I promise you I sha’n’t fail
in that!”
The carriage swept along with an added impulse of curiosity and
expectation which seemed to thrill through from the men on the box, who
formed an impatient and excited gallery, eager to see what was going to
happen, to the calm, respectable horses, indifferent to such mere human
commotions, who probably were not aware why they were themselves made to
step out so much more briskly. The carriage reached the Seven Thorns at
an hour in the afternoon which was unusually quiet, and which had been
selected by Patty on that account for an expedition which she had to
make. She was coming out of her own door, when the two cobs drew up with
that little flourish which is essential to every arrival, even at a
humble house like that of the Seven Thorns, and stood there for a moment
transfixed, with a sudden leap of excitement in all her pulses at the
sight of the heavy old landau, which she, of course, knew as well as she
knew any cart in the village. Was it possible that it was going to stop?
It was going to stop! She stood on her own threshold almost paralysed,
stupefied--though at the same time tingling with excitement and energy
and wonder. My lady in her carriage, the great lady of the district! the
potentate whom Patty of the Seven Thorns, audacious, meant to succeed,
if not to supersede! The effect upon her for the first moment was to
make her knees tremble, and her strength fail; for the next, to brace
her up to a boldness unknown to her, though she had never before been
timid at any time.
“If you please, my lady,” said John, obsequious, yet with his eyes
dancing with excitement and curiosity, at the carriage door, “that is
Miss Hewitt of the Seven Thorns on the doorstep, if it is her your
ladyship wants. Shall I say your ladyship wishes to----”
“Look here! you’ve got to go off to the post-office at once to get me
some stamps. I’ll manage the rest for myself,” said Lady Piercey,
thrusting two half-crowns into the man’s hand. Poor John! with the drama
thus cut short at its most exciting moment! She waited till he had
turned his back, and then she waved her hand to Patty, still standing
thunderstricken on the threshold. “Hi!--here!” cried Lady Piercey, who
did not err in her communications with the country people round her on
the civil side.
If it had not been for overpowering excitement, curiosity, and the
desire for warfare, which is native to the human breast, Patty would
have stood upon her dignity, disregarded this peremptory call, and
marched away. She almost tried to do so, feeling more or less what an
immense advantage it would have given her, but her instinct was too
strong--a double and complicated instinct which moved her as if she had
not been at all a free agent: first, the impulse to obey my lady, which
was a thing that might have been overcome, but second, the impulse to
fight my lady, which was much less easy to master, and, last of all, an
overpowering, dizzying, uncontrollable curiosity to know what she could
have to say. She stepped down from her own door deliberately, however,
and with all the elegance and eloquence she could put into her
movements, and went slowly forward to the carriage door. She was in her
best dress, which was not, perhaps, so becoming to Patty as the
homelier attire, which was more perfect of its kind than the second-rate
young ladyhood of her Sunday frock. Her hat was very smart with flowers
and bows of velvet, which happened to be the fashion of the time, and
she carried a parasol covered with lace, and wore a pair of light
gloves, which were not in harmony with the colour of her dress--neither,
indeed, were Lady Piercey’s own gloves in harmony with her apparel, but
that was a different matter. The old lady’s keen glance took in every
article of Patty’s cheap wardrobe, with a comment on the way these
creatures dress! as she came forward with foolish deliberation, as if to
allow herself time to be examined from head to foot.
“You are Patty, that used to come out so well in the examinations,” Lady
Piercey said, with a breathlessness which showed what excitement existed
on her side.
“I am Patience Hewitt, my lady, if that is what you’re pleased to ask.”
Margaret sat looking on trembling at these two belligerents: her aunt,
who overbore her, Margaret, without any trouble silenced all her
arguments and shut her mouth; and this girl of the village and
public-house, the Sunday-school child whom she remembered, the pet of
the rector, the clever little monitor and ringleader--Patty, of the
Seven Thorns, something between a housemaid and a barmaid, and Lady
Piercey of Greyshott! The looker-on, acknowledging herself inferior to
both of them, felt that they were not badly matched.
“Ah!” said Lady Piercey, “yes, that’s what I asked. You’re Robert
Hewitt’s daughter, I suppose, who keeps the public-house on our
property?”
“Begging your pardon, my lady, the old inn of the Seven Thorns is my
father’s property, and has been his and his family’s for I don’t know
how many hundred years.”
“Oh!” cried Lady Piercey with a stare, “you speak up very bold, young
woman; yet you’ve been bred up decently, I suppose, and taught how you
ought to conduct yourself in that condition in which God has placed
you.”
“If you wish to know about my character, my lady, the rector will give
it you; though I don’t know why you should trouble about it, seeing as I
am not likely to wish a place under your ladyship, or under anybody, for
that matter.”
“No,” cried Lady Piercey, exasperated into active hostilities; “you
would like to climb up over our heads, that’s what you would like to
do.”
Patty replied to the excited stare with a look of candid surprise. “How
could I climb over anybody’s head, I wonder? me that manages everything
for father, and keeps house at the Seven Thorns?”
“You look very mild and very fine,” said Lady Piercey, leaning over the
side of the carriage, and emphasising her words with look and gesture,
“but I’ve come here expressly to let you understand that I know
everything, and that what you’re aiming at sha’n’t be! Don’t look at me
as if you couldn’t divine what I was speaking of! I know every one of
your plots and plans--every one! and if you think that you, a bit of a
girl in a public-house, can get the better of Sir Giles and me, the
chief people in the county, I can tell you you’re very far mistaken.”
Lady Piercey leant over the side of the carriage and spoke in a low
voice, which was much more impressive than if she had raised it. She had
the fear of the coachman before her eyes, who was holding his very
breath to listen, growing redder and redder in the effort, but in vain.
Lady Piercey projected her head over the carriage door till it almost
touched the young head which Patty held high, with all the flowers and
feathers on her fine hat thrilling. “Look you here!” she said, with that
low, rolling contralto which sounded like bass in the girl’s very ears,
“we’ve ways and means you know nothing about. We’re the great people of
this county, and you’re no better than the dust under our feet: do you
hear? do you hear?”
“Oh yes, I hear very well, my lady,” said Patty, loud out, which was a
delight to the coachman, “but perhaps I am not of that opinion.” There
was, however, a little quaver of panic in her voice. Lady Piercey was
right so far that a person of the people, when uneducated, finds it
difficult to free him-, and especially herself, from a superstition as
to what the little great, the dominant class can do.
“Opinion or no opinion,” said the old lady, “just you understand this,
Miss Polly, or whatever your name is: You don’t know what people like us
can do--and will do if we’re put to it. We can put a man away within
stone walls that is going to disgrace himself: we can do that as easy as
look at him; and we can ruin a designing family. That we can! ruin it
root and branch, so that everything will have to be sold up, and those
that offend us swept out of the country. Do you hear? Everything I say I
can make good. We’ll ruin you all if you don’t mind. We’ll sweep you
away--your name and everything, and will shut him up that you are trying
to work upon, so that you shall never hear of him again. Do you
understand all that? Now, if you like to think you can fight me and Sir
Giles, a little thing like you, a little nobody, you can just try it!
And whatever happens will be on your own head. Oh, are you back already,
John? What haste you have made! Good-bye, Patty; I hope you understand
all I’ve said to you. Those chickens, I can tell you, will never be
hatched. John--home!”
Patty stood looking after the carriage with her breast heaving and her
nostrils dilating. The old lady had judged truly. She was frightened.
Panic had seized her. She believed in these unknown miraculous powers.
What could the Seven Thorns do against the Manor House? Patty Hewitt
against Sir Giles and Lady Piercey? It was a question to freeze the very
blood in the veins of a poor little country girl.